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The habit of Alinor's servants was to carry out their mistress's orders as quickly as was humanly possible. Although she was not so unreasonable as to punish a man for bad weather, neither was it wise for a messenger of hers to sit down beside a river and wait for a flood to subside. Thus the trusty man that carried her letters and Ian's found King John at La Rochelle, where he was making preparations to return to England. It was a great relief to the messenger not to have to pursue the king, for John, when he was not sunk into lethargy, moved from place to place almost as swiftly as his mother had done. Moreover, the messenger's task was essentially over. Fortunately for him, in the city of La Rochelle full court protocol obtained, and this protocol forbade the direct approach of so insignificant a servant to the king, except in a dire emergency. Alinor's man had only to see the court official Ian had designated and deliver the letters to him. |
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Ian had taken a good deal of pleasure in deciding to whom to deliver the letters. There were so many of the king's favorites he disliked, and John was notoriously unrestrained in his behavior toward the bearer of ill tidings. The first idea had been to let Fulk or Henry carry his own rejection, but Ian reluctantly had to abandon that notion. Neither of those gentlemen was above lifting the seals with a hot knife, murdering the messenger and destroying the letters, so that Alinor's seeming refusal to reply to the king's orders would make the marriage seem an act of defiance. Not that most of the other gentlemen of the court were above lifting a seal, |
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